pure-systems and IBM have co-written a new whitepaper looking at the issue of Quality Management in Software Product Lines.

The paper looks at how to manage tests and issues more efficiently in the context of a product line. It’s typically the case that not all tests and issues are relevant for all products in a product line. This knowledge must be formalized in order to be able to avoid unnecessary work.

It’s also important to be able to realize complete variant-specific traceability. With this, the cost and risk associated with new bugs and features can be estimated more accurately. Furthermore, delivered product variants can be treated differently from errors or missed tests in not-yet-deployed product variants.

The paper looks at these issues in the context of a new pure::variants add-on - Connector for IBM® Rational® ClearQuest® but it should be of interest to anyone working with software product lines. The paper is available here (PDF).